Lifetime is always loved by the viewers for its diverse palette of captivating stories. The highly anticipated drama thriller film ‘Lies Between Friends’ has finally been released. If fans love watching a well-made and brilliantly conceptualized film which presents a brilliant amalgamation of drama, intriguing past history, love story, secrets, deceit, misunderstandings topped with a psychotic girl who tries to turn a much in love couple’s lives totally upside down for her own twisted revenge vendetta, then this one is unmissable. ‘Lies Between Friends’ doesn’t waste any time in getting our attention and eyes glued to the screens from the first scene itself.
Directed by Ann Forr, the film starts with an interesting backstory where Ollie (Peter Benson) and Steve used to be best friends back in their college days. An incident happens which changes the lives of the thickest buddies forever. During those days, Ollie and Steve were in a party with another girl named Anna. Ollie gives his then late girlfriend Anna drugs for loosening her up but unfortunately it didn’t work well on her and she dies. Then Steve takes the blame on himself to safeguard and defend him and goes to jail for a crime that he never even committed in first place. Cut to many years later, Ollie is a renowned businessman who owns a multi-million dollar making software company.
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Steve meets Ollie (Peter Benson) and tells him that his daughter Emily (Matreya Scarrwener) got a scholarship to study computer engineering at Seattle Tech but doesn’t know anyone there. He explains how she tried searching online but couldn’t find any affordable accomodation options in Seattle. He asks Ollie if he and his wife Claire (Zibby Loo) can let his daughter stay in any of their spare rooms or guest house to which Ollie agrees. Ollie and Claire meet Emily next day and decide to let her stay in the guest house. At first they both are happy to let her stay there.
Emily looks at their house and feels envious of them. She then decides to make this couple’s lives a hell. Then she drops her innocent girl act and starts creating small misunderstandings in their lives. She firstly decides to babysit their kids and earn their trust before implementing her plan to get justice for her dad Steve who should have been compensated, according to her, as the co-founder of Flair Technologies which Ollie sold for more than $200 million. Claire is impressed with her and then casually she mentions about her dad having drinking problem and their old college incident in which both Steve and Ollie did drugs and a girl also dying due to that. This makes Claire uneasy as she feels that Ollie has hidden this fact from her.
The mystery around Emily (Matreya Scarrwener) only widens more when Claire catches Emily in her room looking at her jewellery and Emily says that she was looking for some costume jewellery stuff. Claire tells Ollie that this incident rattled her feathers a lot and he replies that it might be an unintentional mistake and tells her not to doubt her. Then many more disturbing incidents happen including Emily giving Ollie poisoned champagne to make him sick so that she can go to the couple’s kids game and competition. This makes even Ollie start doubting Emily. But this time, Claire tells him that he is imagining things.
Ollie confesses to Claire about that doomed night at the college party years ago which changed their lives forever. He opens up on how it was him who gave drugs to Anna and not his best friend Steve that night. Steve just took the blame to save him and went to jail for a crime he never did. This shocks Claire and she tells him to do things right with Steve which would start with approving his pitch idea for that app. Ollie and Claire also have a discussion about Emily's suspicious behavior and the things she has done. They decide to tell her to go away from their guest house and give her few weeks for searching another accommodation.
However, Emily murders her father Steve during a heated argument with him. She comes back to the couple and creates a sob story about her father's death. They feel painful and take her in again but Emily continues her wrong habits.
Later on Claire starts realizing that something's not right and things go south when she somehow gets to know the truth behind Steve's murder. She tries telling Ollie but couldn't as Emily wants to kill her. Somehow Ollie reaches in nick of time and saves Claire from Emily.
Matreya Scarrwener as Emily, Peter Benson as Ollie and Zibby Loo as Claire have given exemplary performances in the film. Special mention to the fact that Matreya Scarrwener has proven her mettle as an actress with her nuanced and multi-layered performance as Emily in this film. She effortlessly switched between feigning herself as innocent and becoming cunning and sinister shaded Emily who wants to fulfill her sick revenge on this couple for getting her dad justice. She has given a fine performance as a young girl who is grey shaded in reality but can also feign being innocent when she wants to be. This film is definitely not for the faint hearted. It’s a well-made film filled with a lot of mystery and suspense that constantly kept viewers at the edge of their seats. Meanwhile, Peter Benson and Zibby Loo have also given superb performances as Ollie and Claire in the film who are elite couple living in Seattle and suddenly their lives turn into a living nightmare because of Emily’s entry in their lives. Kudos to Laura Balson Carter for making a tight and fascinating storyline for this film which definitely kept global viewers on the edge of their seats.
Overall, ‘Lies Between Friends’ is a suspenseful film which has right mix of drama, thriller, emotional backdrop of characters alongside the chilling mysterious element of murder, lies, stealing, truth and misunderstandings as well.